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Why Do They Even Try With The Shuttle?

i have no idea why they even tried to get this thing flying again, theyre already planning for a new craft in 2010, how much intelligance can they really gain with this completely outdated shuttle in five years?

Well, they did get to spend 1.5 billion on repairs in the course of the 2 and a half years

Now since the foam parted with the craft once again one does wonder what did the money go for

Anyways I am sure there are plenty of inteligent people around the world who would do wonders with the money US,EU,Russia,China and India spend on space programs, but then again thats really not what those agencies were built for.
As for the true purpuse of the founds spent, who knows what military or even more shadowy agencies do with the money anyway.

BTW Japan has a space program as well, not much going on, but one does wonder when and how this technological superhouse will explode on the scene. To me at least, it looks to be the most promising of the bunch. Especially considering the technological zeal and competency this country possesses, not to mention advancement in the field of robotics and behind the courtains research into the nanorobotics.

well, thats my point, the whole design is 30 years old, its like driving a pinto compared to what our technology can conceive today. I dont know why they dropped over a billion freakin dollars in that old of design just to get 5 more years from it.

another idea ive been having lately is that we still dont have a really good way to even get into space, im really surprised we havent figured out how gravity works, or what it is. once that peice of the puzzle is solved it will answer many many questions we have about our universe

Doesn't NASA have a bunch of contracts they need to fulfill on? I had always thought that one of the main purposes the shuttle was used for was to send up satellites and other space junk for various commercial corporations... I thought nearly every satellite up there was put there by NASA, though not always with the shuttle. I know they have plenty of other rockets for launching smaller satellites and research vessels and what not. Satellite TV, phones, GPS, telescopes etc.

Plus, they are way behind with the ISS. Isn't Russia the only other nation that sends ships up there? The shuttle's the only thing that takes actual people there.

But, to be honest, I'm really not that up on what the *$#@! NASA has been doing. I could be way off the mark. I do agree that the shuttle's days are far gone. We shouldn't still be using that outdated money pit of a ship.

As far as I know, the shuttle doesnt put up many/if any consumer-business satalities. Thats all been done by smaller unmanned rockets- i dont know though maybe im not right.

We are way behind on ISS, i feel bad for russia, who really needs something like a growing space program to help thier economy. they need anything they can get really. Nasa has just been basically in poverty in the last decade, its not going to change until our economy goes up, mainly when our energy costs go down. Energy costs are killing us, the rest of the world isnt so dependant as we are. Until we get cheaper fuel for cars (HYDROGEN) *hint* its just stupid we dont have these cars everywhere by now. Thanks OPEC, and thanks in the future when you wont allow cars to be mass-produced to run on water.

No Russia Soyuz module, which can take up to 3 people, took care of that for quite some time now.
You dont think people were there for more then 2 years, do you?

There is some talk of reusable vehicle, called Kliper as a replacement for Soyuz in 6-10 years time. 6 years being likely if ESA joins on a project. Still Russia did budget enaugh money for space exploration till 2015 to make Kliper a realistic option.

Many commercial launches are carried out by Boeing and ArianeSpace these days.

It's like I said in the last space thread, the shuttle's primary purpose must be military. US Congress wouldn't sanction an average cost of $1.5 billion per launch just for people to float about and monitor a few zero-gravity high school biology experiments. Of course, it does also play an important role in taking supplies and crew to the ISS now.

The remaining orbiters are getting long in the tooth, but I think it would be a shame to mothball the remaining fleet now, with a replacement at least several years away, unless NASA conclude that the risks have become too great.

I guess they say full-filling thier obligation to the ISS is why they are keeping the shuttle in service. Makes sense, dont need to let down the russians, er we dont want to look like *****s really. So i guess that goes with what was said earlier about keeping their end of already-made contracts. But still, im sure military has something to do with it as well, remember bush talking not too long ago about reviving the star wars project? If we wanted to be the first with a space-to-ground laser would we tell anyone? yeah, sure we would the same way we tell about about everything else

nah, there were 6 shuttles built ( I was wrong too, I thought there were 5)

Atlantis, Challenger, Columbia, Discovery, Endeavour, Enterprise

However, Enterprise was only a test vehicle and never went into orbit, so there are 3 orbiters left now.

Then there was the Russian Buran, which looked like a clone of the shuttle. Although it was never completed, due to funding cuts, it was a pretty clever bit of kit, as its only flight was unmanned and it landed itself automatically.

The thing which annoys me the most is that all the issues with reentry (that I'm aware of) could be avoided if you had a powered entry. That is, use rockets to decellerate before reentry, rather that then current method of losing energy via friction.
Did somebody say nuclear powered engines? I hope so. It is the only way forwards. Or shall we continue with the enormous firecracker approach which has a terrible track record.

Now I know NASA have their fingers in all sorts of projects but I'm only talking about the shuttle stuff.

Spaceship-one spent tens of millions not billions to get into space. I know it's apples and oranges but throw in a few more tens of millions and private enterprise are heading to show-up NASA.

I strongly believe that until we are able to explore the ocean depths and burning hot lava flows with robotics there is no chance of making mars. There has been too many vehicle loses of late. It is far cheaper to master the necessary technologies here on earth than making expensive and timeconsumers screwups in space. Hell, we haven't even proved that man went to moon (conspiracy theory I know, but if the world needs convincing why not find the lander remnants and point a telescope at it).

Back to the shuttle. Where the hell is redundency? It seems that it has absolutely none on the physical side of things. Why isn't is simply double-skinned. Maybe because it would be to heavy? It needs to be so much tougher.

It bugged me when the NASA engineers where saying "we don't know why the foam came off". Sounds like BS to me. They know exactly what it is made of, how it is attached and the forces exerted upon it during take-off. Does NASA not own a jiggle-o-matic to simulate take-off conditions?